National Education Policy: Govt initiates reforms after 34 years

New Delhi: The new National Education Policy that received the Union Cabinet's approval on Wednesday has put in place a slew of education reforms both in the higher education and schools sector. If implemented well, the norms will reduce regulatory hassles and promote autonomy.

The NEP that comes after a gap of 34 years, tries to put a systemic change in the sector than an incremental one and underlines several new rules that will benefit students, education providers and the labour market.

The new policy, however, is not clear, whether it will allow foreign universities to come to India and operate independently in the near future. But says it will lighten up the education regulation space by merging multiple higher education regulators like University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). The human resource development ministry will be renamed education ministry, HRD minister Ramesh Pokriyal said during a press briefing.

“We have gone for systemic reform than incremental reform," higher education secretary Amity Khare told reporters.

The new policy talks about phasing out the affiliation system in university level and instead makes way for three categories of university system –- research focused universities, teaching focused universities, and autonomous colleges.

As suggested in the draft report, the final policy has done away with the MPhil degree and underlined that graduation degrees will be three- and four-year duration. Masters level degrees can be one or two years of duration. Currently one-year degrees are not recognised in India.

The policy redraws the schooling system on a 5+3+3+4 formula instead of the current 10+2 model. Besides, the high stake Board exams at Class 10 and Class 12 level, will be ‘low stake’ and may be conducted more than once a year.

It says vocational education will be integrated from Standard 6 and internship of 10 days in school level will be made part of the system.

Foundational learning in languages and mathematics will get a priority in schools. It says the education sector will have massive usage of technology in teaching, learning and assessment.